By Shamaoma Musonda and Adrian Mwanza –

.Mawere

SPORTS Minister Moses Mawere has now moved in to try to quench the fire at troubled City of Lusaka and has summoned the Justin Zulu-led executive to a meeting at his office this afternoon.
And the meeting between the executive and the Board of Trustees which was set for yesterday at Woodlands Stadium failed to take off as the executive found orders not to allow them access into the planned venue and and also that certain board members not immediately available.
On the summon from the Minister, club Secretary Christopher Chilongo said the Minister had expressed concern about the happenings at the club and has since called them to a meeting to hear the details of the stand-off.
He said it was important that the matter gets resolved at the earliest possible time so that energies can now be channelled towards the football club.
“We have been called to the Minister’s office tomorrow (today). We are meeting Minister Moses Mawere so we tell him what is happening first hand. We want to close this case so we help the team and avoid it from sinking further. We have a lot of information and we hope to put this matter to bed,” said Chilongo, who was flanked by his chairman Zulu and Committee Member Mbuna Mwanza.
And Chilongo said yesterday that the club was disputing the US$526, 000 debt owed to Cavmont FMO Cpatial that had resulted in the transfer of 59 per cent of the shares from the club to Cavmont FMO.
Cavmont later sold those shares to Forli Investment, owned by Diego Casilli.
Chilongo said that first of all, the figure had popped from nowhere and that in minutes obtained from meetings that resulted the figure to be declared a debt, there was no mention of the  money needing to be converted into shares.
He added that the executive had Cavmont’s expense on the club and it came to nothing near the US$526, 000.
He said his executive had spoken to former executive members and trustees who do not remember the transactions that saw the sponsorship to be converted into shares.
When asked about the a statement that declared his executive redundant, Chilongo dismissed the matter and said his executive was in office and would follow through  matters of sponsorship and shares to the extreme end.
He said Christine Mulundika, the Board of Trustees who signed the statement to declare the executive and board of Trustees had declared herself redundant and had been replaced.
And on the meeting the executive should have held with the new Board of Trustees,  he said that they were first barred and also that some members of the Board were out of town but committed themselves to be available later in the evening yesterday.
“Whether we are stopped from having meeting at the stadium, we can move it anywhere. We plan to move it to Southern Sun but it will go ahead,” he said.
He said the executive intends to hand the issues of the property and liabilities of the club to the trustees so they sort the matter out and leave the issues of the football club, player and coach recruitment to the executive.